1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a winding device that winds print media conveyed from a printer into a roll, and to a print winding system.
2. Related Art
A winding device according to the related art has a winding shaft (winding unit) onto which continuous label media conveyed from a printer is wound, a motor that drives the winding shaft, a guide roller and an auxiliary roller that guide the continuous label media conveyed from the printer, a swing roller that contacts the continuous label media between the guide roller and the auxiliary roller and absorbs slack in the continuous label media, a roller position sensor that detects the position of the swing roller, and a control unit that determines if winding the continuous label media is completed based on the detection result from the roller position sensor as described in JP-A-2012-201491.
A stationary flange, a removable flange, and a winding core to which the leading end of the continuous label media is affixed with adhesive are installed to the winding unit.
Unlike in a conventional winding device, when the amount of print medium wound onto the winding shaft, or more specifically the diameter of the take-up roll, becomes large in a winding device to which drive power is input from the conveyance unit of the printer, the winding speed becomes slower than the conveyance speed of the print medium when winding starts due to the inertia (inertial moment) of the take-up roll and slack develops in the print medium even if the winding speed at which the print medium is wound onto the winding shaft is designed to be substantially the same as the conveyance speed of the print medium in the printer.
This slack in the print medium then gradually disappears as a result of the winding speed gradually increasing and then temporarily exceeding the media conveyance speed. The moment the slack in the print medium is eliminated, the rotational energy of the take-up roll is transmitted directly to the print medium. More specifically, the print medium is pulled toward the winding device by the rotational energy of the take-up roll. As a result, there is an adverse effect on the conveyance precision of the print medium in the printer.
If the user wraps the leading end of the print medium around the winding shaft to rewind the print medium instead of using a winding core as described above, the position of the second flange in the axial direction of the winding shaft is determined by lightly pushing the second flange against the side edge of the print medium when installing the second flange to the winding shaft. This results in crushing the print medium to some degree in the axial direction. In addition, because the gap between the inside surface of the first flange and the inside surface of the second flange is narrower than the width of the print medium, the print medium is also crushed widthwise as it is wound onto the winding shaft. If the print medium is crushed widthwise, gaps develop between successive layers of the print medium wound onto the winding shaft, which contributes to bagginess.